Chapter 37

Thirty-Seven: A Scholar Also Kills (Seeking follows and votes)

Ouyang Rong closed his eyes in the darkness, but he couldn't sleep.

The more he thought about it, the more something felt wrong.

How did his merit suddenly increase in the middle of the night? He hadn't done anything just now; he had only given a few casual instructions.

Could it be that sending the Slender Girl back and rejecting her hint about wanting to share his bed was saving her, or rather... sending pastries to Old Cui and the other clerks to let them rest was saving them?

Doesn't that mean there's a change in the east storeroom?

Ouyang Rong immediately rolled off the table and rushed out the door.

By the time he ran near the east storeroom, he indeed caught sight of a black shadow flashing across the roof from afar. Immediately after, he saw his junior sister's graceful figure rush out from the doorway below, leap nimbly onto the roof, draw her bow and shoot an arrow under the moonlight, and then pursue them. Outside the east storeroom below, things had fallen into some chaos.

Ouyang Rong, with a short sword borrowed from his junior sister hanging at his waist, gripped the hilt and stood guard. He immediately stepped forward and learned the specific situation from the soldiers and clerks he encountered. He breathed a sigh of relief, but upon hearing that Old Cui was still insisting on working inside the east storeroom, he felt some worry. He didn't exchange pleasantries with Qin Heng outside the door and went straight inside...

Thus, Ouyang Rong saw a scene that left him silent.

"What are you doing?"

The old gentleman, who had been operating quietly since just now, swayed his body.

Ouyang Rong didn't look back and reached out to block Commandant Qin and the other soldiers who were about to rush in.

He said seriously: "Put down the lamp."

Old Cui nodded silently and let go. The lamp fell, landing on the pile of account books drenched in the strange liquid.

In an instant, a volcano erupted on the table.

It even spread along the edge of the table to the old man in front of it. This strange liquid seemed even more flammable than petroleum, and the fire spread extremely fast. If Ouyang Rong hadn't rushed over swiftly to push Old Cui away at the first moment, the old man would have been swallowed by the tongues of flame in the next second.

"Magistrate Ouyang, the account books!"

Qin Heng grabbed a bucket of well water and was about to splash it onto the table, but it was snatched away by Ouyang Rong. The first bucket of well water was poured onto Old Cui's head, and the second one too. Fortunately, there wasn't much of that strange liquid on him, so the fire started fast and was extinguished fast.

But even so, Old Cui was severely burned; his hair, beard, and eyebrows were mostly charred, looking just like a red radish pulled out of the soil with mud still on its roots.

The large fire on the pile of account books on the table wasn't extinguished until the seventh bucket of water, leaving only ashes.

Qin Heng and the other generals wanted to say something but hesitated.

"Everyone out."

Ouyang Rong didn't even look at them or the embers on the table. He walked over alone, dragged a chair over, threw his tired body onto the back of the chair, stared at the old man curled up in pain on the floor in front of him, and clenched his five fingers around the hilt of his sword.

Only two people remained in the room.

"Why?"

The young magistrate asked.

"I'm... I'm sorry."

"No, no, no, you're not sorry to me." He shook his head, lowered his eyes, and spat out word by word: "Tell me, why."

"I... I thought about refusing."

"But you didn't refuse."

"When I fled the disaster that year, this life was saved by the Liu family's porridge shed."

"Can that broken porridge shed of theirs still save people?" Ouyang Rong laughed.

"That was then. When Old Master Liu was still alive, it wasn't like this, and he wouldn't have allowed these three brothers to do this now... At that time, the Liu family's porridge shed didn't extort wealth, and it really did save some people."

"I thought you were a spare piece placed by the Liu family specifically, having long ago anticipated that someone would bring troops to audit the accounts."

"I'm not a death-sworn soldier, and I found the job at the county office myself. After Old Master Liu passed away, I hadn't been in contact with the Liu family for many years. I even thought the Liu family had forgotten me, but... they still came knocking."

Old Cui smiled miserably and shook his head, "Young Master."

The young magistrate shrank entirely into the large chair and responded calmly, "Hmm."

"This favor from the Liu family... I have to repay it."

"By burning yourself?"

"By burning the accounts, I'm square with the Liu family. But I've let down you, Young Master, and the tens of thousands of refugees outside the city."

"What kind of bullshit logic is that?"

"Even you, Young Master, think it's bullshit..." Old Cui murmured, looking at the sky, "I've calculated accounts my whole life, did I still fail to calculate this last one correctly?"

"Is dying the way to make amends?"

"My life is cheap..."

"Your life is indeed cheap."

Ouyang Rong nodded, "You did a cheap thing, so your life is cheap, but your life didn't have to be cheap; it was you who degraded yourself."

Old Cui was stunned. Ouyang Rong's tone was firm: "A real man is never born with a cheap life. Whether it's cheap or not depends only on whether he has done noble or despicable things. You? Noble or despicable?"

"I..." Old Cui's body began to tremble, unable to say a word.

Ouyang Rong leaned his upper body forward, supported his knees with his elbows, and coldly looked down at his increasingly fearful eyes:

"In your eyes, justice isn't as important as a bowl of porridge from a dozen years ago?"

"I..." Old Cui said timidly: "I thought you could win... burning just one family, there are still twelve others, it wouldn't affect the disaster relief..."

"The Liu family is the primary culprit. If the Liu family doesn't fall, copying the other twelve families first is no different from driving away a wolf to raise a tiger, or even facilitating a conspiracy between tigers and wolves, a path to death. Besides..." Ouyang Rong asked calmly: "Whether I can win in the end has anything to do with whether you do despicable things?"

Old Cui opened his mouth blankly, unable to speak.

Ouyang Rong stood up, looked at the distant mountains outside the window, and nodded in conclusion:

"A favor of a meal must be repaid. I respect you as a man, but to see a small favor and forget the greater righteousness, you have brought shame upon the men of Wu and Yue."

Old Cui's face was full of pain. He held his head and wept bitterly, his hoarse voice filled with deep remorse: "Young Master, I... I was wrong... I calculated the accounts wrong... It's me who has let you down..."

"No, you haven't let me down the most. Go and say you're sorry to the refugees outside the city."

A glimmer of light appeared in Old Cui's eyes. This glimmer was very complex, containing guilt, remorse, hope for life, and pain for the future: "Okay, I will apologize, I will do more things to atone for my sins, and spend the rest of my life working like an ox or a horse for them..."

Ouyang Rong shook his head, "No need for so much trouble, just go over part of the way."

"What part of the way..."

Before the old man's confused words were finished, the young magistrate walked over neatly, slashed horizontally with his sword, and severed a head. The headless corpse fell backward onto the ground.

The young magistrate, who had completed the act as smoothly as cutting wheat, stood in place, looking down at the sword in his hand and "Old Cui."

The cold light of the sword reflected a face with charred flesh and no eyebrows.

It was a good sword; the white blade didn't even stain with blood, only sliding off mercury-like blood beads.

He could slay a dragon.

Ouyang Rong, who had killed for the first time, wiped the blood splattered on his face with the fabric of his shoulder, stood in place, and sheathed his sword. But after trying several times, he couldn't hit the hole in the scabbard at his waist, so he simply gave up, carried the sword in one hand and the head in the other, and turned to walk slowly out the door.

In the courtyard, Xie Lingjiang, Commandant Qin, Yan Liulang, and Magistrate Diao were all there. Everyone gathered quietly outside the door, eyes wide as they watched a magistrate with the temperament of a gentle scholar walk out carrying a head in one hand.

Xie Lingjiang hooked and lifted the two severed halves of the bronze beast mask, looked at her senior brother with worry, and stepped forward to speak, but was pulled back by the sleeve by Yan Liulang behind her.

The young magistrate's blood-stained face was terrifyingly calm.

He tossed the head in front of the crowd:

"Traitor."

The whole scene was silent.

"Take it and hang it on the city wall." He said again.

A complex look mixed with awe appeared in everyone's eyes. As Ouyang Rong moved forward expressionlessly, the crowd in front of him spontaneously parted a path.

Only Magistrate Diao, who had just arrived at the scene and didn't understand the situation, was as talkative as ever. As he greeted him, he said with a bitter face:

"Hey Magistrate, the subordinate said we couldn't audit, we couldn't audit. What if we found something? It will cost lives. If there are any problems, let's talk about them harmoniously. Governing such a large county, so many local gentry and powerful families, we have to stew it slowly..."

Ouyang Rong suddenly drew his sword and slashed forward, "Stew your mother's head."

"Ah... help, help..."

Magistrate Diao was scared out of his wits, held his head, and fled in panic. Ouyang Rong chased him with a dark face and sword in hand. Magistrate Diao screamed for help at the top of his lungs, but no one dared to stop the rampaging magistrate. Everyone stood by and watched blankly, and some of the crowd even silently made way for the two of them as they chased...

And so, under the watchful eyes of everyone, the magistrate of a county and the assistant magistrate of a county staged a life-and-death speed chase in the courtyard.

"Magistrate, calm down... Magistrate, calm down... Ah!"

It's just a pity that Magistrate Diao was a career bureaucrat who was sleepy every morning and a night-owl god of war; how could he outrun Magistrate Ouyang, the runner-up in the school sports meet's 100-meter dash? Before he had even run half a circle, he screamed, was kicked down by a flying kick from behind, fell flat on his face, and his official hat even flew over the courtyard wall.

Ouyang Rong rode on Magistrate Diao, pressed his hand on this thin head, and slammed the sword down beside his neck, which was stretched longer than a duck's. The white blade was almost entirely submerged in the soil.

The fine hairs on the skin of Magistrate Diao's neck could almost feel the sharpness of the blade. He was scared out of his wits, eyes wide and neck stretched, looking just like a duck being pressed onto a chopping block to have its head cut off.

"Magistrate, spare my life, Magistrate, spare my life, sob, sob, sob..."

"Chirping and chirping... grinding in my ears all day long. You want to kneel and beg for food, and you want to drag me along too?!"

"The subordinate didn't, the subordinate was really doing it for the Magistrate's own good... Magistrate, calm down! Calm down!"

Ouyang Rong pried open Magistrate Diao's eyelids with his fingers, his bloodshot eyes staring fixedly at Magistrate Diao's fearful gaze. His right hand gripped the hilt of the sword beside his neck; as long as he pushed it forward and diagonally, he could harvest another fresh head.

"Calm down?" The young magistrate tilted his head: "Tell me, why should I calm the fuck down? If you can't say it, I'll chop off your head to sacrifice to the flag first, and then I'll lead the troops to knock on the Liu family's door and copy their homes one by one!"

"...!!!" Magistrate Diao.